Defending That Which Is Not Mine (Synopsis)

For many young men, trauma permeated the Vietnam War, but for a negro angered by racism and struggling with self-acceptance, the added strain of the fight may well destroy him. When his actions once again threaten to send his family into financial spiral, Timothy Thornton enlists in the U.S. Army to prove he is not the stereotypical negro he fears he is becoming.

Once overseas, Thornton meets Sergeant Gerald Sanders—a young man who is a bewildering mess of kindness and spite, racist, yet not. Why does Sanders single Thornton out from the other negros? What does he know that Thornton does not? Because of Thornton’s resolve to be honorable, Sanders perceives opportunity to inflict pain as he was once so deeply scarred.

As pieces of his world disintegrate around him, Thornton must decide whether he has the grit to withstand the ache of honor’s price or to let his worthlessness and suffering cripple him into becoming the man he so dreads.

*

My dog tags slipped out from beneath my collar and clinked together. I fingered them for a moment, then tucked them inside my drenched shirt.

I remembered what Sergeant Hoffman had said when I first arrived at BCT three and a half months before: my tags were my family’s only closure if I died.

If I died. Thinking like that felt morbid, but deep down, I knew I’d either return home, or I wouldn’t. That seems like a stupid statement, but fifty percent chance felt very low when less than a quarter mile away explosions rumbled and guys my age and younger were…were dying. And although I had dug what was supposed to be safety for me, it felt like I’d just dug my own grave.

The chain stuck to my neck. Its nearness seemed to tell me: “You will die.”